The Brother's Past
by guardian of olympus
Summary: After Mycroft is injured and hospitalised after an incident, Sherlock starts to get flashbacks to his childhood; memories which he cannot remember ever happening... Rated T for blood and possible child abuse in later chapters
1. Chapter 1

There was a knock at the door. John trekked sleepily downstairs, undid the latch and pulled it open.

Sherlock's older brother Mycroft, who was clutching his umbrella in one hand and an important looking file into the other, stood infront of him on the doorstep.  
"John." Mycroft greeted with a nod, stepping inside.  
John was slightly puzzled by the fact that Mycroft wasn't being trailed by his assistant 'Not' Anthea, and the fact that Mycroft seemed a little flustered, but his suspicions were distracted by Sherlock's shout  
"Go away, Mycroft!" Sherlock echoed from upstairs  
"And good morning to you to, brother -mine." Mycroft drawled, ascending the stairs.  
"Whatever it is, Mycroft I refuse to do it." Sherlock replied  
"Won't you even wait for me to tell you what it is." Mycroft said, entering the flat.  
"Something of 'extreme importance to the British government' I bet." Sherlock snapped, mimicking Mycroft's voice  
"Oh very juvenile, Sherlock."  
"I had a busy day yesterday, I've still got a case to solve so if you would kindly shove off." Sherlock snapped  
"Sherlock." John said in a warning voice.  
Mycroft rolled his eyes and dropped the file he was holding onto the table.  
"The case is-"  
"I don't care. Didn't you hear me? Shove off!"  
"But-" Mycroft spoke up  
"No, Mycroft. I'm not doing your dirty work, you have minions to do that for you."  
"You don't understand-" Mycroft tried again. John picked up on a hint of desperation in his voice, but it was surprisingly lost on Sherlock.  
"No I don't suppose I do. 'Don't try to be smart Sherlock, I'm the smart one.'"  
"Sherlock!" Mycroft snapped sharply  
"Mycroft!" Sherlock retorted  
"I'm losing my patience, Sherlock."  
"Oh please do." Sherlock snarled "It'll make you go so much faster."  
"You really want me to go?" Mycroft asked, a hint of sadness in his voice  
"Yes. After all, it's not as if I need you."  
Mycroft drew himself up to his full height, clasping his umbrella handle so tightly that his knuckles went white.  
"No. I suppose you don't." He turned and walked out the door. He paused.  
"Goodbye, Sherlock."  
Sherlock didn't reply.  
A few seconds later they heard the front door close.  
"Good riddance." Sherlock muttered.  
"Sherlock..." John began, walking into the room "Did you notice... Mycroft. He wasn't really himself..."  
"It's just the diet. It always put him in a bad mood."  
"Sherlock, I'm serious. He seemed..." He couldn't believe he was about to say this "Scared."  
Sherlock looked at him with an amused look.  
"Don't be ridiculous." He snorted "Mycroft has never been scared of anything."  
"Sounds like you have a Little Brother complex."  
"What?"  
"I have it to, with Harry. You see your older brother as invincible, unable to be hurt."  
"I think you're mistaking our brotherly relationship for one that has sentiment."  
John rolled his eyes, picking up the file Mycroft left on the table.  
"Let's see what all the fuss is about anyway."

"Be my guest." Sherlock shrugged "It's hardly going to be anything important."  
He opened the file and read the piece of paper it contained. It was a report, a few photographs paperclipped to it.  
"Sherlock..." John said, his eyes wide  
"What?" Sherlock looked up  
"Look."  
John held out the file and Sherlock took it. He read the first line.  
'Subject: Mycroft Holmes. Possible assassin target.'  
"What the hell?" Sherlock muttered.  
Before he could react to what he just read, three loud gunshots reverberated from outside.

Instinctively, John grabbed his gun and charged outside, Sherlock in tow.  
There was a hooded figure standing across the street, holding a rather large revolver in one hand. Across the street on their side, a figure lag crumble on the street propped up slightly by the wall, the flagstones slowly being stained red by the blood.  
The figure spotted them running towards him, and evidently spotted John's gun. He fired off a shot which blasted into the stonework by John's head. John opened fired and the man fell to the ground.

Sherlock was already by the casualties side before John had even fired the gun. He froze, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. A few meters away lay a familiar bamboo handle umbrella, laying where it's owner had dropped it.  
"Sherlock." John said, kneeling down next to his friend, recodnising the familiar far-away look in his eyes "Don't go into your mind palace. Please. Your brother needs you."

Brother.

Now Sherlock saw. It was Mycroft. Mycroft was lying infront of him, unconscious, two bullet holes in his abdomen, one more in his arm. Blood pouring out onto the ground.

Mycroft had been shot.

He needed to process this. This was new... Well not entirely new... There was something else...  
"Sherlock!" John shouted  
Sherlock snapped out of it. With a heavy feeling in his stomach and a cold feeling in his blood, he helped John lift his brother along the street. He saw the large puddle of blood on the flagstones and nearly froze again, but he forced himself to continue. For his brother.

Once Mycroft was safely inside the flat hallway, John was instantly on the phone to the ambulance.  
"Mycroft." Sherlock tried to wake him up. He was vaguely aware that people could here you when unconscious. Or was that a coma? His mind palace was a mess, the walls crumbling. This couldn't happen. Never. When Mycroft had turned up he'd never...  
"Mycroft can you here me? You've got to wake up. Mycroft. Please."  
He felt like a little child again, calling out to his brother with wide eyes. He could never seem to remember why though...  
"S-Sherlock." Mycroft muttered in his sleep.  
The sound of sirens began to fill the air; then all of a sudden Sherlock felt himself be pulled away, a swarm of strangers in bright jackets swarming his brother. He felt lost. He wanted his brother. He wanted Mycroft.  
"MYCROFT!"


	2. Chapter 2

When Sherlock woke the next morning, finding himself unceremoniously collapsed on a row of seats outside the hospital ward, he half expected to find Mycroft lying in his own private room of the hospital. What he really found surprised him.

Mycroft was in the main ward, positioned between a man who had obviously gotten the wrong end of a bar brawl, Sherlock deduced that it occured after his girlfriend's husband found out about their Saturday meetings, and a child who had broken his legs after a car crash.

His brother looked rather smaller lying in the hospital bed, his face paler than normal, his torso wrapped in thick bandages, but the wounds still visible by the red blood over each wound.  
He looked a lot less imposing in the large hospital bed.  
Sherlock began to get suspicious. First, no Anthea, no black car following them as they drove to the hospital in the ambulance, now no private room for a government official. It was almost as if... No that's impossible.  
"Hello, Sherlock." Mycroft smiled. Sherlock jumped. He hadn't expected him to be awake.  
"Mycroft." Sherlock said, slightly relieved, then he caught himself.  
"What's going on, Mycroft?"  
"I don't know what you mean, brother mine."  
"You know_exactly_ what I mean, _**brother mine**_." Sherlock retorted back, sharply "First no car, then no Anthea and now in a hospital ward with the common public." Sherlock checked off the list "What's going on? Why aren't your 'people' falling over themselves to get this mess cleared up. Why did you have to come to ME to help you with something that your own security team can do ten times as efficiently?"  
"Because I don't have a security team anymore, Sherlock." Mycroft snapped. Sherlock tensed, then stood up, smiled at the man in the next bed and pulled across the surgical curtain till they were sectioned off from the rest of the ward. Not the most discrete of talking places, but it was better than nothing.  
"What are you talking about, Mycroft?"  
Mycroft sighed, wincing slightly at the pain twisting round his abdomen "After the Bond Air fiasco, I was, as you would put it, 'Demoted' in security clearance as a punishment. For a month I have no car, no Anthea, no protection whatsoever."  
"Just a month?"  
"I will have managed to climb back up the ranks by then." Mycroft explained "But until then, I am completely out in the open, and as luck would have it, someone heard of this turn of events and has hired someone to... 'Take me out'" Mycroft grimanced at the colloquialism "I can't even go to the Diogenes Club for danger of putting other government officials in danger."  
"Don't worry about it, Mycroft. John shot him dead just after he shot you."  
"They'll hire more." Mycroft told him "ones who probably a little more discrete than shooting me in broad daylight outside my detective brothers flat..."  
"I should hope so..." Sherlock said, then caught himself "Sorry, I-"  
"I understand, Sherlock." Mycroft smiled slightly.  
"Sentiment, Mycroft? Now I know your ill."  
"Indeed."  
"So where do you suggest I start?"  
"You'll help?" Mycroft looked slightly helpful despite his best attempts to look just as cold as normal  
"Someone just put three bullets into my brother, of course I'm going to help."  
Sherlock stood up, going to leave, but stopped and turned back.  
"Oh, by the way, thought you might want this back." He carefully held out a familiar looking umbrella to his brother. His brother took it and held onto the handle habitually, as if it where a life-line, letting a small smile flicker across his face.  
"Thank you, Sherlock."

He was in his house. Not 221B. His childhood home. He was in his room, habitually neat, just as Mycroft always wanted him to keep it.

Mycroft.

There he was now, sitting on the bed, looking away from him towards the window. He was shuddering. Sherlock took a step forward, a childish, almost primal urge to get to his brother.  
All of a sudden, Mycroft vanished and Sherlock found himself stood in the drawing room, staring up at his father.  
He was angry, too angry. He looked down and saw a pile of glass. He'd dropped his fathers whiskey decanter.  
"You good for nothing wretch!" His father screamed, the stench of alcohol on his breath, "I'll get you for this!"  
There was a smash. Glass. Father. A flash of cloth, a scream.  
Not his own.

Sherlock tore open his eyes, sitting up slightly. His breathing was fast and sharp, like he had been running.  
He was in his room. 221B. He could hear John moving in his sleep next door. Light was peeking through the curtains, he deduced it was around five o'clock in the morning.

Sherlock seldom slept while on a case, and therefore seldom dreamed. On the rare occasion when he did, he was often so into the case he simply found himself dreaming about the case itself.  
He didn't understand. What was that? Was it a memory? He couldn't recall it ever happening. All he knew was that he didn't sleep for the rest of the night.


End file.
